The present invention relates to a printing system including a printer and a plurality of terminal devices, which are interconnected through a network system.
Conventionally, a printing system including an image forming device such as a printer, and at least one external device interconnected through a network system has been known. Typically, the image forming device is located remote from the external device. In such a system, it may happen that a confidential document is to be printed, i.e., printing data of the confidential document may be transmitted to the image forming device through the network so that the confidential document is printed by the image forming device. In such a case, if the image forming device prints out the confidential document as soon as it receives the printing data through the network, there is a possibility that the printed out document may be viewed by a person who is not an intended recipient of the document.
To solve the above problem, the assignee has suggested, in Japanese Patent Provisional Publication P2001-217948, a printing system including a personal computer (hereinafter referred to as a PC) and a printer interconnected through a network. In this system, printing data and a password are transmitted to the printer, which are stored in a storage of the printer. Thereafter, when the password is transmitted from a cell phone to the printer, the printer starts printing of the stored printing data corresponding to the password.
According to the above configuration, even through the printer is remote from the PC and the printing data is transmitted to the printer, the printer does not starts printing until it receives the password corresponding to the printing data. Therefore, a confidential documents will not be printed out and therefore viewed by an unintended recipient.
However, according to the above system, it is necessary to certify the recipient, and for this purpose, it typically requires a password to be input through the cell phone, which is troublesome.
Another system is disclosed in Japanese Patent Provisional Application P2000-177212. According to this system, a printer receives printing data and an ID number of an intended recipient of the printout, and stores the same. The recipient always brings an ID card with him/her. The ID card has a signal transmitting/receiving function. The printer is configured to transmits an ID requiring signal to ID cards within a predetermined communication area. When a holder of the ID card comes inside the predetermined communication area, the ID card receives the ID requiring signal. Then, the ID card transmits the ID number to the printer in response to the ID requiring signal. Upon receipt of the ID number from the ID card, the printer checks whether it currently stores printing data corresponding to the received ID number, and if any, starts printing the data.
According to the above configuration, it becomes possible that a print job of the printing data is initiated when the recipient of the printing data is sufficiently close to the printer. Further, it is unnecessary for the recipient to manually input the password in response to the request from the printer.
According to this system, however, a recipient is required to always bring the dedicated ID card with him/her. It may be inconvenient since a dedicated ID card should be designed for the printing system. Further, every user of the printing system must bring the ID card only for the purpose of initiating a print job.
There is also known a printing system, which includes a plurality of PCs and a plurality of image forming devices such as a printer interconnected with each other through a network system.
In such a system, when a print job is executed, a user may designate an image forming device to be used using the PC. For example, when a user intends to print printing data using a printer, firstly, he/she controls the PC to display a list of printers available on the network system, and select one of them to be used. Then, the user starts a printing job, and the printing data is transmitted to the selected (designated) printer.
In the conventional system, however, a printer is selected based on the names of the imaging devices, IP addresses and the like. Therefore, it is necessary that the user should know a relationship between each image forming device as listed and location thereof in order to obtain a printout from an image forming device at a desired location.
In order to solve this problem, according to a network printer system disclosed in Japanese Patent Provisional Publication P2001-154822, operator ID for identifying an operator is used to designate a printer to be used.
Specifically, according to the system in this publication, the printer obtains an operator ID from a user in a setting mode, and broadcast the obtained operator ID together with the ID data (e.g., MAC address or the like) within the network. A work station (or PC) obtains, in a setting mode, the operator ID, and compares the operator ID included in the broadcast signal and operational ID with the broadcast data. If the input operator ID and the broadcast ID coincide with each other, the printer from which the operator ID is broadcast is selected as the printer to be used.
According to the system as above, without a troublesome setting operation, an appropriate printer can be selected and control the same to executed a print job.
However, according to the above-described system, if the user desires to switch a plurality of image forming devices, setting operations should be performed when the printers are switched, which is troublesome.
Further, when a plurality of users use the same printer in a shared manner, the confidentiality of the printout as aforementioned arises again. That is, when a user selects one imaging device, and control the same to print out a confidential document, if the image forming device outputs the document upon receipt of the printing data, the output may be viewed by an unintended recipient.
Still further, in a system including a plurality of image forming devices and a plurality of terminals interconnected with each other, it sometimes happens that a user requiring a print job (i.e., a demander) and a recipient of the output of the print job are different. If the demander and the recipient are the same, the demander selects, for example, a printer which is close to the demander. However, if they are different, it is necessary for the demander to know a location of the recipient. It is especially important when the recipient does not stay at the same position.
According to the JP provisional publication P2001-154822, which is mentioned before, the demander designates a printer to be used. Specifically, the printer requires the demander to input an information key, which is broadcast in the network together with the identification data (e.g., MAC address) thereof. A workstation requires the demander to input the information key, and compares the input information key with the broadcast information key. If the information keys are judged to be the same, the printer which broadcast the information key as the target printer, to which the print data is transmitted.
Thus, by modifying the system such that the demander inputs the information key through a PC and the recipient inputs the information key through a printer, it becomes possible to configure a system in which the printer closed to the recipient is controlled to executed the print job directed to the recipient.
According to such a system, however, it is necessary for the recipient to input the information key through the printer, which is relatively troublesome. Further, the information key input by the recipient must be identical to that input by the demander through the PC. Therefore, if the demander and the recipient are different, the information key should be notified from the demander to the recipient, which may not get along in a practical use.